Snowflake Days #5 & #6
Jan. 21st, 2025 12:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
singedsunDay Five
Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom.
I met many good friends through fandom over the last twenty or so years. I've honed my writing ability both with and without collaborators. I've visited cool conventions with friends. I've met amazing writers I adore through fandom or fandom friends. I've also been able to introduce real life friends to things I love, fandom things we might not have enjoyed otherwise. Mostly I think as I've mentioned before, just having a community of any shared experience, is life changing on its own. It's a little like always have someone to sit with at lunch. It makes a difference.
Day Six
Share your favourite piece of original canon.
I've already talked about how much I love Dragon Age. It is probably the fandom I've ever best connected with. But that's a big series with a lot of bits and there's not one specific thing that stands out to me. I just like it. However, I just recently got a Dracula tattoo, so maybe let me talk about the part of that finally drove me to get a tattoo.
So, I've read the book a few times but last year a series of passages stuck out to me and so suddenly, like it took over my body in that moment and I had to sketch it out because I was so taken with it. It comes from a conversation in the book between Van Helsing and Dr. Seward. If you know the story, it takes place after Lucy's funeral. The group is returning via train and Arthur (Lucy's betrothed) makes a comment about the transfusions they were giving her and equates it with marriage. (Which given that all the men gave her blood would make her a polygamist.) Van Helsing is seized with 'hysterics' and barely contains himself until he and Dr. Seward make it to their train car. And of course, as you might in a sad moment and someone starts laughing, Jack looks at him like he's nuts. He asks Van Helsing what the fuck is going on with him, this is a sad thing and you're laughing? This is Van Helsing's reply:
“Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, 'May I come in?' is not the true laughter. No! he is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person; he choose no time of suitability. He say, 'I am here.' ... Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall - all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. And believe me, friend John, that he is good to come, and kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come; and, like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again; and we bear to go on with our labour, what it may be.”
While this whole passage is fantastic, as Van Helsing is essentially reminding Jack that hey, sometimes life is weird and daunting and you feel weird about it. If laughter comes, let it come. To me though, the idea of King Laugh, laughter as and anthropomorphized being, who's arrived to make you feel laughter so strongly you can't ignore it. Like it's a tiny escape from life to be burdened with such laughter, that really stuck out to me.
Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom.
I met many good friends through fandom over the last twenty or so years. I've honed my writing ability both with and without collaborators. I've visited cool conventions with friends. I've met amazing writers I adore through fandom or fandom friends. I've also been able to introduce real life friends to things I love, fandom things we might not have enjoyed otherwise. Mostly I think as I've mentioned before, just having a community of any shared experience, is life changing on its own. It's a little like always have someone to sit with at lunch. It makes a difference.
Day Six
Share your favourite piece of original canon.
I've already talked about how much I love Dragon Age. It is probably the fandom I've ever best connected with. But that's a big series with a lot of bits and there's not one specific thing that stands out to me. I just like it. However, I just recently got a Dracula tattoo, so maybe let me talk about the part of that finally drove me to get a tattoo.
So, I've read the book a few times but last year a series of passages stuck out to me and so suddenly, like it took over my body in that moment and I had to sketch it out because I was so taken with it. It comes from a conversation in the book between Van Helsing and Dr. Seward. If you know the story, it takes place after Lucy's funeral. The group is returning via train and Arthur (Lucy's betrothed) makes a comment about the transfusions they were giving her and equates it with marriage. (Which given that all the men gave her blood would make her a polygamist.) Van Helsing is seized with 'hysterics' and barely contains himself until he and Dr. Seward make it to their train car. And of course, as you might in a sad moment and someone starts laughing, Jack looks at him like he's nuts. He asks Van Helsing what the fuck is going on with him, this is a sad thing and you're laughing? This is Van Helsing's reply:
“Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, 'May I come in?' is not the true laughter. No! he is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person; he choose no time of suitability. He say, 'I am here.' ... Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall - all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. And believe me, friend John, that he is good to come, and kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come; and, like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again; and we bear to go on with our labour, what it may be.”
While this whole passage is fantastic, as Van Helsing is essentially reminding Jack that hey, sometimes life is weird and daunting and you feel weird about it. If laughter comes, let it come. To me though, the idea of King Laugh, laughter as and anthropomorphized being, who's arrived to make you feel laughter so strongly you can't ignore it. Like it's a tiny escape from life to be burdened with such laughter, that really stuck out to me.
I, as an auDHDer, who often has time feeling vulnerable and just feeling my feelings, need the reminder. Sometimes you have to feel the feeling that's coming to you whether it's joy or sadness. AND I'd prefer the laughter.
Similarly there's a joke from Pete Holmes about being an easy or a hard laugh who says:
"I'm an easy laugh. I don't know why people always make fun of people who are easy laughs. ... Worse than that people are proud of being hard laughs. ... What are you Nosferatu? Let some sunlight on your goddamn soul."
So I got a tattoo last week that says, "KING LAUGH" and I'm very happy with it.
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